19794242

...In this work, a noninvasive direct ultrasound-based strain tensor measuring (STM) technique is presented to assess changes in the mechanical parameters of the vascular wall during post-occlusion reactive hyperemia and/or FMD, including local velocities and displacements, diameter change, local strain tensor and strain rates. The STM technique utilizes sequences of B-mode ultrasound images as its input with no extra hardware requirement, and its algorithm starts with segmenting a region of interest within the artery and providing the acquisition parameters. Then a block matching technique based on speckle tracking is employed to measure the frame-to-frame local velocities. Displacements, diameter change, local strain tensor and strain rates are then calculated by integrating or differentiating velocity components. ... source: PMID: 19794242

strain tensor measuring (STM) techniques